Knesset Committee still forbids MKs from entering Temple Mount

The committee listen to police assessments of the situation and chose "in the meantime, not to change its earlier decision" banning Knesset members from the site for eight months.

"However," the ruling noted, "when security officials decide to permit entry to Knesset members to the Temple Mount, the committee will convene and change its decision accordingly."

Police representatives suggested that Muslim MKs may resume visiting during the last week of Ramadan, which will fall on the first week of July, and Jewish MKs returning the week after.

MK Ahmed Tibi (Joint List) denounced the committee's decision. "Our entry or prayer is none of the ethics committee or the Prime Minister or the police commissioner’s business," he told Walla! news. "It is a natural, religious, personal, and national right. So it was and so it will be."

A number of his fellow party members have pledged that they will go up to the Temple Mount during Ramadan in defiance of any ban.

At the same time, Tibi regularly calls for the government to forbid Jews from praying at their holiest site.

New MK Yehuda Glick (Likud) has also expressed support for legislators visiting the Temple Mount, though without discriminating by religion. He used his Twitter page to "call on all parties to join together to transform the place into a world center for peace, reconciliation and coexistence."